[Meta] The real purpose of dad jokes

Back in the before times, when sit-down restaurants existed, I used to order boneless cheese sticks and would just throw the word "boneless" in front of any appetizer with 100% corniness. The purpose of this isn't to make a good joke. It's not a good joke. The purpose is to make my dining companions catch some cringe splash damage and want to crawl into a hole and die out of embarrassment for my being horribly corny.

But there is a real, deeper purpose that I've discovered entirely by accident. People, especially young people, are so self-conscious and worried about saying or doing something embarrassing that it taints a lot of social gatherings. They go to a restaurant and are afraid to speak up even when their order is blatantly wrong. They'll tip well even when the food took an hour to arrive and the server has disappeared into the corn stalks behind a baseball field. It takes 2 hours of hanging out together before some friends finally stop nitpicking themselves, uncomfortable in their own bodies and brains, feeling perpetually judged, and begin to relax. These are the kinds of people who go to sleep every night replaying cringey moments from high school. Their last thought of the day is when the Burger King girl said, "Enjoy your meal!" and they said, "Thanks, you too."

It takes 2 hours and/or a lot of booze before they're comfortable enough to take conversational risks and truly reveal themselves. But if I come right out of the gate with a really dumb joke, then we can cut to the chase. There's less danger because someone in the group already shot themselves in the foot, right off the bat. They pulled a pin on the cringe grenade and then jumped on it.

You cringe at my dumb joke and then we're over the hump. Someone has already done something pretty stupid, so go ahead and order the hubcap of nachos and a massive chocolate shake because nobody is going to judge you poorly while they're all judging me.

In terms of price negotiations (haggling), there is a psychological concept called "anchoring". You throw out the first number and all subsequent numbers are compared to that number. This is the same idea. We've already set the humor standard pretty low at "boneless cheese sticks", so you can say the dumbest shit you want and, as long as it's not worse than my cheesy joke, it won't matter.

This is why, when you were a teenager and your dad took you and some friends out, your dad made corny jokes. He knew they were corny jokes. You and your friends un

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/Permatato
๐Ÿ“…︎ May 18 2020
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My wife wants me to be more sensitive. So I got her abacus beads for her birthday.

She said, โ€œWhat the hell are these?โ€

I said, โ€œItโ€™s the little things that count.โ€

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/porichoygupto
๐Ÿ“…︎ Jun 13 2018
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Three little pigs

Once upon a time there were three little pigs, Pork Chop, Hambone, and Bacon.

The boys lived at home with their mother. One day their mother said, โ€œI no longer have enough food to feed you boys, you need to go out on your own and find your fortunes.โ€

Not wanting to upset their mother they left the house together to seek their fortunes.

Several miles into their journey Bacon, the little pig everyone liked best, said, โ€œLetโ€™s build our houses here! This seems like a great place to start making our fortunes.โ€

Pork Chop and Hambone agreed. So they all began building their houses.

Pork Chop, the laziest of the bunch, decided to build his house out of straw, which he apparently stole from a nearby field. It was not a very sturdy building material, but Pork Chop didnโ€™t care. All he wanted to do was play all day, and he didnโ€™t want to spend too much time building.

Hambone was willing to work a bit harder and he decided to build his house out of sticks which he procured by de-limbing every tree within a 300 meter radius of their homestead.

Hambone and Pork Chop were happy. Now all they had to do was to play and sleep the rest of the day.

Now Bacon was a hard worker. He knew that his brothers had used bad materials and shoddy construction methods and he wanted to build the best house he could. He found several tons of bricks stacked in neatly ordered pallets in the forest which he decided to use for his building material. It took him several days, but when he was done Bacon had the best house on the homestead.

The next day a wolf, Scott Howard, happened upon the pig brothers and their new homestead. He spied the straw house and smelled Pork Chop inside and began to think to himself that Pork Chop would make a mighty fine meal, so Scott went and knocked on the door.

Scott said, โ€œLittle Pig! Little Pig! Let me in!โ€

Pork Chop replied, โ€œNo way Josรฉ! Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin!โ€

Scott, undeterred by the reply says, โ€œThen Iโ€™ll huff, and Iโ€™ll puff, and Iโ€™ll blow your crappy straw house to the ground!โ€

Scott began to huff and puff. He was evidently having some sort of asthma attack, but after a few tugs from his handy dandy rescue inhaler, he was able to muster enough wind to blow Pork Chops straw house to the ground.

Pork Chop narrowly escaped Scottโ€™s massive jaws. Scared, and now homeless, Pork Chop ran for the nearest shelter he could see. Hamboneโ€™s house.

Scott, undeterred, chased Pork Chop to his new hiding place. Scott was very pleas

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/RageMonster17
๐Ÿ“…︎ Jan 14 2019
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Perks of being a Dog

A dog sleeps about 20 hours a day.

He has his food prepared for him.

He can eat whenever he wants, 24/7/365.

His meals are provided at no cost to him.

By the way he does not need to pay for medical insurance.

He visits the doctor once a year for his checkup, and again during the year if any medical needs arise. For this he pays nothing and nothing is required of him.

He lives in a nice neighborhood in a house that is much larger than he needs, but he is not required to do any upkeep.

If he makes a mess, someone else cleans it up.

He has his choice of luxurious places to sleep.

He receives these accommodations absolutely free.

He is living like a King, and has absolutely no expenses whatsoever.

All of his costs are picked up by others who go out and earn a living every day.

I was just thinking about all this, and suddenly it hit me like a brick in the head.......

..

..

..

..

A dog is like a โ€œPOLITICIANโ€

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/Ammabmma
๐Ÿ“…︎ Feb 08 2018
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everything is closed on thanksgiving!

First off, I'm new here. I've only been a dad for a few years but, I'm not sure i'll ever be able to top this and the circumstances of the set up were so chance and specific, I will never be able to use this again. This is what inspired me to seek you out and tell my story.

So, like most thanksgivings, we went to a relatives house and had very large but unusually early dinner. We went home and by nine or ten o'clock we had the little one off to sleep and my wife and I were getting hungry and wanted something simple. She asked for fast food and I was willing to oblige.

I drove to Taco Bell and it was closed. I called my wife, "sorry Taco Bell is closed. What do you want from BK?". I then drove to BK and discovered it was also closed. Called the wife "Sorry honey, BK is closed. What do you want from McDonald's?". You might see were this is going and, if you haven't already guessed it, Micky D's was closed too."Ok, I'm just going to the gas station. What do you want?" She asked for cheddar fries and I was willing to oblige. Got in side, no cheddar fries! I grab her funyuns. She like funyuns, it will be fine. As a joke (not the one we are leading up to) I called her on my way home and told her the gas station was closed too.

I got home, told her the truth about the gas station and gave her the back up back up back up back up back up plan bag of funyuns. She joked around about the number of times I had failed her in one outing (keep in mind, I had been giving her a hard time through this whole event) and then asked me for a soda from the fridge. So is This when the magic happened. I was opening the fridge when the gravity of the situation and what was at stake here suddenly struck me. I closed the fridge, got out a glass and filled it with water. I brought it back to her in the living room. She says "why did you bring me water?"

THE FRIDGE WAS CLOSED!

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/La_Guy_Person
๐Ÿ“…︎ Dec 08 2015
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While eating dinner with my girlfriend...

We were both extremely tired from having little sleep and we were at this diner before checking in for the night. I put my head down for a second while we waited for food and she told me she'd assault me if I didn't wake up. I promptly ignored her then felt this weird sensation on my arms and neck. I look up to see she's been using a salt shaker on me.

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/RageLikeCage
๐Ÿ“…︎ Feb 08 2015
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